In the 1960s, a group of Black photographers from New York City began gathering in kitchens, living rooms, and galleries to critique each other's work. According to one of the workshop’s founders and its current president, Adger Cowans, they basically began as “bull sessions” where photographers would talk shop.
“Sitting around, you know, eating chili and drinking wine, and talking about cameras and how to shoot,” Cowans said.
Now their work is the subject of a retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art, but for some, it's a bittersweet moment for some of the featured artists.
"Working Together: The Photographers of the Kamoinge Workshop" showcases a collection of works from the 1960s, when the group coalesced out of the informal gatherings.
The Kamoinge Workshop got its name from the Gikuyu language of Kenya—“kamoinge” means "a group of people acting together"—and many of the early members say it was like a family. But while the group’s early days were more informal, when it came to talking about each other's work...well, there's little as harsh as familial honesty.
“When it came time for me to show my photographs, they were highly dismissed,” said longtime street photographer Beuford Smith, who joined Kamoinge in 1965. “‘This is nothing,’ you know, ‘You gotta do better than this,’ and I was kinda hurt! But I said, no I gotta come back.”
For the ones who stuck around like Smith, Kamoinge was a welcome space for Black photographers to explore their art. Carrie Springer, who curated the exhibition for the Whitney, said the work on display showcases a variety of techniques and subjects that the workshop’s members experimented with.
“They were thinking about composition and pattern and light and shadow and all of the elements that go into photography,” said Springer.
In the gallery, the photographs are grouped by theme, and range from street shots that document Black life, to the crowds at a Malcolm X rally, to more surreal, abstract images, all made at a time when Black photographers were mostly ignored by the art establishment.
But some of the surviving founders say they have mixed feelings about a retrospective of the group, because they feel like they were ignored during the prime of their careers.
“On a personal level, you know . . . I’m not impressed,” Cowans said. “It should have happened a long time ago. We live in a very racist society, and I think they haven’t been fair with the African-Americans in terms of the art world.”
Similarly, Smith says the exhibition itself is bittersweet because it was put together in the wake of the death of one of Kamoinge’s founders, Louis Draper. Smith also believes framing it as a retrospective risks anchoring their work in the past, even though he, Cowans, and their colleagues are still active photographers, and Kamoinge has continued to act as an incubator for contemporary Black photographers.
“I would like for this to open up a door for the critics, or the powers that be, or whatever to say ‘Okay, are there any new members? What are they doing now?’” said Smith.
"Working Together: The Photographers of the Kamoinge Workshop" is at the Whitney through March 28th.
